Fully Funded Doctoral Level Scholarships for International Students
DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIPS
On doctoral level, no tuition fees are charged, but you will need to cover your living expenses. If you are admitted as a doctoral student, contact your Finnish university department for advice on research funding options. The university departments may have paid doctoral research positions available, or doctoral funding schemes of their own. They can usually also best direct you to potential grant-awarding foundations in your field of scientific research.
Also check out the national EDUFI Fellowship scholarship programme available for doctoral level studies and research in Finland:
Note that the "applicant" for the EDUFI Fellowship is your hosting Finnish university department, so in order to be eligible for the EDUFI Fellowship, you must first successfully apply for doctoral level admission. If you have questions regarding the EDUFI Fellowship itself, please contact the scholarships admins directly. You can find their contact details on the above EDUFI Fellowship web page.
For more information on scientific research funding in Finland, see the Academy of Finland website and the Aurora research funding database.
EDUFI Fellowship
Are you looking for a scholarship to help you recruit a foreign student to do doctoral research? The EDUFI Fellowship is intended, particularly, for providing initial funding to carry out research for a doctoral thesis in Finland.
We have attracted excellent young researches to Finland with the fellowship, the majority of whom have also managed to secure further funding for their research.
EDUFI Fellowship in a nutshell
Applicant: a Finnish university department
Who: a doctoral student or a young researcher from outside Finland
Purpose: initial funding for completing a doctoral research project in Finland, completion of a double degree or a study visit on exceptionally compelling reasons
Application deadline: rolling deadline. You should apply for the grant five months before the start of the fellowship.
Duration of fellowship: 3–12 months, visits 3–6 months
Size of grant: 1,500 euros/month (2019)
Who can apply and for whom?
You can apply for the fellowship grant if
- you work as a researcher or a teacher in a Finnish university department
- you will be hosting the research fellow
- you will commit to common objectives with the research fellow
- you will offer facilities and equipment for the use of the research fellow
- you will supervise the research.
You can apply for a fellowship for a non-Finnish post-graduate (post Master’s degree) student or a young researcher that you will invite to Finland or who has been in Finland for a maximum of one year before applying for the fellowship.
The EDUFI Fellowship is available to all foreign nationals and all fields of study.
What kind of work is the grant available for?
The fellowship grant is intended for post-graduate studies as well as research and teaching cooperation in Finnish universities in all fields of study.
We will award the grant
- for starting work on a doctoral research project if the whole doctoral thesis will be completed in a Finnish university. You cannot apply for the grant at the end of a research project or for post-doctoral research.
- for completing a double degree in Finland.
- for a study visit for post-graduate students working on a doctoral thesis in a university outside Finland, if there are particularly compelling reasons for the cooperation.
The fellow must work in Finland but is allowed to make conference visits abroad.
If the fellowship period is longer than six months, it can include short visits abroad to gather research material, if needed, in addition to conference trips. These visits in total cannot exceed one month.
If more time will be needed for gathering material during the EDUFI Fellowship, the fellowship grant can be applied only for those periods during which the fellow will be working in Finland.
Grant
The fellows cannot apply for the EDUFI Fellowship themselves, because the grant will be awarded only to a Finnish university department.
The university will first pay the grant to the fellow as a personal grant and will then invoice it to EDUFI after the end of the fellowship.
The grant can be split over several periods.
The grant is intended to cover the living costs of the fellow in Finland. We will not pay separate accommodation costs or contribute to travel, visa, residence permit or insurance costs.
Rolling deadline
You can apply for the fellowship grant at any time. Please send the application to us at least five months before the planned start of the fellowship.
The application process will take about three months. Usually about 35-40% of applications are approved every year. Decisions will be sent to the applicant university department.
Fellows will need the following documents for their visa/residence permit application
- a copy of the EDUFI fellowship decision
- an invitation from the host university department
Application form
You can fill in the EDUFI Fellowship application form in Finnish, Swedish or English. The application form comes with instructions on how to fill it and a list of required annexes. Please post the signed form and annexes by e-mail to: Kirjaamo(at)oph.fi , and write “EDUFI Fellowship” in the subject line of the e-mail.
edufi-fellowships_application_form_and_instructions_30092020.doc (doc, 196 KB)
Reporting
The aim of the EDUFI Fellowship is to help make Finnish research and teaching more international and to build networks between Finnish and foreign universities. Final reports allow us to monitor the impact of the fellowships.
In your report, you will be asked to list the main results of the fellowship period and to describe how the objectives for the fellowship were achieved.
Please submit the report within a month after the end of the fellowship.
Please use the online reporting form.
Contact us
Email: firstname.lastname(at)oph.fi
Päivi Jokinen
Tel. +358 295 338 518
Marjaana Kopperi
Tel. +358 295 338 553
Tarja Mäkelä
Tel. +358 295 338 556
Finland scholarships program